Pouring love into trans community
Dear friends,
Since our founding in 2002, TLC has always drawn our strength from the wisdom of trans and gender-nonconforming communities. In 2024, we leaned on the guiding principles put forth by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in our Trans Agenda for Liberation, pouring fierce love into our movement in the form of litigation, movement building, powerful narratives, and abundant resources.
We’re living through and responding to widespread attacks on the freedoms of all marginalized communities, especially trans people. But the truth is, Transgender Law Center (TLC) has been fighting these challenges at the state level for years. We’re experienced, prepared, and equipped to meet this moment. TLC’s team and our partners across the U.S. have put down roots together, building deep relationships and strengthening power in the courts and on the ground in communities.
In these pages you’ll see how many community partners and donors have supported our work to defend trans rights and advocate for the liberation of all people, centering BIPOC, disabled, and HIV+ communities. For the first time last year, Transgender Law Center infused the movement with rapid-response resources by launching the Action for Transformation Fund. Thanks to you, we continued to uplift the lived experiences and knowledge of young people, people in prison, sex workers, and migrants in every corner of TLC’s work.
Together, we work in unstoppable coalition to joyfully build trans power for the long term.
Thank you for being with us.
In solidarity,
Executive Director
Board Chair
2024 in Numbers
We responded to 2,247 requests through our legal helpline and 838 letters and phone calls through our prison mail program. TLC responded to a 380% increase in requests after the January 2025 presidential inauguration.
Our Narrative Lab trained 210 individuals from 138 organizations spanning the LGBTQ+ and allied movements ecosystem to cultivate positive and informed storytelling.
TLC has a presence in 34 states and U.S. territories through support of emerging leaders, movement partners, and staff.
We launched and moved $1M+ in rapid-response funds to strengthen grassroots trans-led groups through our Action for Transformation Fund in partnership with Emergent Fund.
We engaged, trained, and/or resourced 600 transgender activists and allies – the most ever to meet this moment.
We activated and deepened 90 partnerships with intersectional and cross-movement groups.
We spread joy by mailing art, zines, and stickers to 85 GSA clubs across the U.S..
We mobilized 61 volunteers through our Legal Services Project, including attorneys and other legal professionals.
We litigated 11 impact cases, and filed 12 amicus briefs to
protect and advance trans
rights.
Resourcing Trans Power
In the context of Funders for LGBTQ Issues’ latest Tracking Report that reveals that less than 4 cents for every $100 goes to trans communities, this injection of $1M+ dollars is significant. As a grantmaker and donor organizer, so many of us have been pushing for more funding to go to trans movements for years. It’s an honor to launch and steward this fund that is by and for us–truly having trans people at the heart of its theory of change.”
Founding Director of the Action for Transformation Fund
In direct response to the rise of authoritarianism and increased backlash, especially attacks on trans communities of color, Transgender Law Center took action to quickly move funding and strengthen grassroots movements for the long haul by infusing $1M+ directly to trans leadership. To date, the Action for Transformation Fund (AFTF) has funded 166 grassroots trans-led organizations, across the U.S., totaling $1.67 million, and we’re not done yet. On average, half of the grants have gone to groups based in the U.S. South, and nearly all grantee partners are trans- and BIPOC-led.
In September 2024, TLC and Emergent Fund partnered to launch Action for Transformation Fund (AFTF), a rapid-response initiative to support trans-led organizing, healing, and power-building efforts. Founded in 2016, Emergent Fund is a movement-aligned national rapid-response fund that explicitly supports directly impacted communities. With Emergent Fund’s support, AFTF Director Aldita Amaru Gallardo created a simple, streamlined application process and assembled five trans fund advisors from directly impacted communities who are survivors, storytellers, abolitionists, safety and wellness advocates, community organizers, and more. Together, they reviewed applications monthly, made funding decisions, and dispersed grants of $2,000-$20,000 within days of approval.
These rapid-response grants supported direct actions, strategic opportunities, sustainable care strategies, narrative shift and storytelling, cultural organizing, art and media interventions, transformative justice, and safety and security measures. Across issue areas, AFTF grantee partners are creating leadership opportunities for trans organizers responding to state and federal attacks while simultaneously shoring up basic needs like housing, food, gender-affirming healthcare, and employment access. Capital Tea of Florida, Trans Education Network of Texas, I Am Human Foundation in Georgia, and many others exemplify this multipurpose model. AFTF grantee partners are also shifting narratives from death and scarcity toward aliveness, abundance, and joy, such as Comfrey Films in North Carolina, Gender Liberation Movement in New York, and Dem Bois Inc. in California. Rooted in a belief that our liberation is intertwined, AFTF grantee partners include groups innovating solutions at the intersection of generative movements that expand our understanding of gender-justice work, including the Intersex Justice Project, Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, and DecrimSexWorkCA. These AFTF partners are leading the way in collectively building trans futures through these difficult times, ensuring that no one is left behind.
The success of the Action for Transformation Fund made a media splash across NBC News, Philanthropy News, and the Disability Inclusion: Required podcast.
In addition to its grantmaking role, the Action for Transformation Fund held its first donor briefing “We Got Us” in December 2024, bringing together trans funders from public and private foundations to strategize and flank the philanthropic sector. In June 2025, AFTF’s Director moderated a donor conversation to deepen understanding and funding realities at the intersections of trans and migrant justice, co-sponsored by Grantmakers Concerned for Immigrants and Refugees and Funders for LGBTQ Issues. Since its launch, AFTF continues to create funder learning spaces at sector-wide conferences, including Creating Change, Funding Forward, and Grantmakers in Health. AFTF plays a significant donor-organizing role to bring attention and resources to build trans power in this critical moment and is seeking new donor partners to join them in their mission.
Local Legal Strategies Strengthen the Whole Movement
TLC’s core legal strategies span precedent-setting court cases, transformative advocacy for trans people in prison, life-affirming advice for individuals through our helpline, vital assistance for migrants as they cross U.S. borders, and more. All of our work has had to scale over the past couple of years. After the inauguration in January 2025, we responded to a 380% increase in legal helpline requests. In 2024, we worked with the legendary Dee Farmer, known for her ubiquitously cited Supreme Court prisoners’ rights case Farmer v. Brennan, to evaluate our prison mail resources so the responses we send are as effective as possible.
A woman we’ve been helping in an Ohio prison gained access to hormone replacement therapy and an evaluation for gender-affirming surgery. Stories like hers are powerful reminders of how vital this program is for our community inside. Even with so many barriers, meaningful change is possible.”
TLC Prison Advocacy and Helpdesk Coordinator
TLC’s state-by-state strategies have wide ripple effects throughout the U.S., building momentum for the larger national and global trans movement.
In March 2024, a Colorado judge gave final approval to our consent decree in Raven v. Polis, our class-action suit on behalf of all transgender women who are or will be in the custody of the Colorado Department of Corrections. This victory required the agency to implement gender-affirming health care and establish two new housing units for trans women incarcerated in the state, open the Integration Unit at Denver Women’s Correctional Facility and the Voluntary Trans Unit for trans women incarcerated in the state. TLC also secured a historic $2.15 million for our class members.
Last year we celebrated when our impact litigation case challenging HIV criminalization, OutMemphis v. Lee, reached a partial settlement. We are challenging Tennessee’s “Aggravated Prostitution” statute, which criminalizes people who are living with HIV who engage in sex work. This statute, disproportionately impacts BIPOC trans sex workers and is a felony conviction requiring a person to register as a violent sex offender for the rest of their lives. Through advocacy and organizing, the legislature changed the sex offender registry requirement, and our settlement created a streamlined process for people with this conviction to removed. We partnered with a local organization and created a new fund to enable those with past convictions to pay for state IDs that no longer list their status as “violent sex offenders.” Those impacted are now off the registry and able to safely see their grandchildren, qualify for housing and employment, and more.
In September 2024, we filed an amicus brief with Akerman LLP in the pivotal case of U.S. v. Skrmetti, challenging Tennessee’s ban on medically necessary gender-affirming care for transgender people under 18. Supported by GSA Network, Transgender Education Network of Texas, Camp Lilac, PFLAG, We Are Family, and TransFamily Support Services, the brief highlighted the experiences of young trans leaders aged 12 to 18 from Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, and Montana. Their stories revealed how their states’ bans disrupted their medical care, and what it feels like to be targeted by their governments. Though the Supreme Court ruled against us in 2025, we are proud of the arguments we made to protect the human rights of trans people of all ages.
TLC’s legal team and our partners show up in a big way, seeking justice, protecting our hard-won rights, and joining local leaders in strengthening the fight for trans and gender-nonconforming people. Through victories and defeats, we will never stop our work on behalf of trans people.
Disability Activism Grows
This is what we do, we practice and nourish an ancient wave of righteous defiance…we keep going. This is the power of disabled people.”
Senior National Organizer, Disability Project
The Disability Project amplifies the leadership of queer and trans disabled, Deaf, ill, and Mad communities and increases the capacity of the movements that serve them. Our project has grown by centering our core value: that marginalized disabled and Deaf people most impacted by eugenics, ableism, anti-Black racism, and misogyny are those whose strategic leadership we need to amplify, resource, and follow. Our team and our strategic community partners are cross-disability, cross-class, multiracial, multigenerational leaders who are trans, queer, and nonbinary.
The Disability Project is continuing to deliver strategic political impact education as an organizing tool for community members, movement leaders, and funders. Our focus includes working within other social justice and politically aligned spaces, such as racial justice, trans justice, healing justice, reproductive justice, decriminalization, and abolitionist spaces. Our work is to connect movements together through a shared understanding of eugenics and the ways ableism, anti-Black racism, and misogyny underpin the systems all of us are trying to dismantle and rebuild.
In addition to speaking and facilitating several workshops on ableism, reproductive justice, decriminalization, sexuality, and more throughout the U.S., our main achievement this year was hosting the National Disability and Deaf Activists Gathering in Washington, D.C., on Gallaudet University’s campus. Our team took great care to ensure the accessibility of the conference, including anti-ableism training for the hotel and conference center, providing ASL interpretation, requiring COVID testing and mask-wearing unless this clashed directly with accessibility needs, and providing funding for personal assistants and attendants. Two dozen majority-BIPOC disability justice leaders and several TLC staff came to the gathering from every corner of the U.S. to highlight work that is often overlooked, engage disabled and Deaf activists from areas outside of major cities, strengthen the ecosystem of disability justice political activism, and foster collective growth and development. Watch a recap of the conference crafted by our partners Love Productions.
We also continued our longtime support of a collective of activists in Chicago who run a mask bloc distributing PPE and COVID testing to community members and working with organizers to center access in their planning of events, protests and trainings. Together we co-sponsored a series of workshops for organizers and event planners to get a deep understanding of the nuts and bolts of accessibility and implementing disability justice into events, protests, meetings, and workshops. We know that the communities and people who are most impacted by the violence of eugenic, ableist and racist systems are those who also have the deep knowledge and a lineage of resistance that will lead us to true resistance and transformation.
Trans Youth Build Community Power
Our Gender Justice Leadership Program (GJLP) is a partnership between Transgender Law Center and GSA Network (GSAN), engaging young leaders from every corner of the U.S. in advocacy, art, and activism for trans, nonbinary, and Two Spirit communities. GJLP organizes the National Trans Youth Council (TRUTH), Roses Initiative for trans girls and fems of color, Water the Roses for intergenerational connection, and Two Spirit Initiative.
Young people must be leaders in our movement because they know best creative ways to take action under anti-trans oppression. GJLP’s 2024 zine, “No PRIDE without Trans Youth,” featured the voices and artwork of dozens of young trans people from across the U.S., and how they are surviving and thriving. The zine highlighted 150+ bills protecting LGBTQ+ rights, including comprehensive education, suicide-prevention and mental health, inclusive sex education, nondiscrimination policies, conversion therapy bans, book-ban protections, and more. It also outlined the ways young activists can take action through attending protests, knowing your rights, registering to vote, signing petitions, and calling legislators to demand trans rights.
GJLP hit the road in 2024 to convene our youth members, make meaningful connections with partners, and build community. We brought together current and former GJLP participants for our Caregiving Convening with Transgender Law Center. Youth from Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas shared their experiences through conversations, Narrative Lab training, and media opportunities.
We also traveled to visit our partner Intransitive in Little Rock, Arkansas, where we interviewed 19 activists about caregiving, safety, and building trans futures. We attended the Disability Project’s National Disability and Deaf Activists Gathering in Washington, D.C., on Gallaudet University’s campus. Later in the year, we brought 10 participants to O’ahu, Hawai’i to strengthen intergenerational community. And we celebrated Pride month in Chicago, Illinois as we filmed our Intergenerational Gurl Talk video about sisterhood, caregiving, and how Black and Latinx communities love and care for one another.
Coming Together for Organizing & Action
[At Black Trans Circles Detroit] The stories give me chills and they reinforce the importance of faith and keeping hope and believing in yourself. It instantly helps to bring you together.”
Trans Sistas of Color Project
TLC’s national organizing, policymaking, and leadership programs are rooted in the Trans Agenda for Liberation, a community-led guide that recognizes trans people hold the knowledge, power, and joy for all of us to survive and thrive.
In addition to expanding our National Coalition membership to 13 leaders from across the U.S., we trained leaders on digital security and safety, brought folks together for strategy sessions, coalition building, rejuvenation, and to celebrate one another’s hard work locally. We convened in-person several times throughout the year, including at Creating Change in Las Vegas, the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS in New Orleans, and the Black Trans Advocacy Conference in Dallas. We sponsored participants’ travel, accommodations, and meals to ensure everyone had access and ease to attend. We also collaborated with the Lavender Rights Project and the Black
LGBTQ+ Migrant Project to host the Ancestors Ball on Trans Day of Remembrance and to celebrate the wrap of our nine-month Fierce & Free cohort for Black trans people.
In summer 2024, our Black Trans Circles program convened 28 women in Detroit in partnership with Trans Sistas of Color Project and the Ruth Ellis Center. Together, we centered leadership development for Black trans women and femmes through the creation of this healing justice space to work through oppression-based trauma and incubate community organizing efforts to address acts of anti-trans violence. The gathering garnered amazing media coverage including in Pride Source and on WXYZ-TV Detroit.
Last year, our National Strategy Group on trans rights policy ramped up efforts to identify and monitor local, state and federal legislation that pertains to trans folks, in priority states: Arkansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee. Our key commitments are to identify and resist anti-trans policies, and pro-trans legislation that we can support. As you can imagine, we’ve been busy in tracking state and federal regulatory activity, ballot initiatives, legislation, executive actions, and policy implementation. With this information we can better advocate for trans people and educate TLC staff and our coalitions and partners.
Beauty and Joy in Trans Stories
Transgender Law Center places emphasis on the power of storytelling to lift up the lived experiences of trans and gender-nonconforming people, build bridges through education, and strengthen the communications capacity of all liberation movements. Our strategic messages find fertile ground to take root through conversations at grocery stores, PTA meetings, churches, podcasts, social media platforms, and more.
In 2024, our Narrative Lab rocketed into the stratosphere, providing communications resources for trans-led grassroots organizations, particularly in the U.S. Midwest and South, including messaging, talking points, and toolkits. The Narrative Lab helps organizations respond strategically around anti-trans attacks, build positive narratives, and cultivate new and more informed audiences. We trained 210 individuals from 138 organizations across the LGBTQ+ ecosystem and allied movements, including reproductive justice, racial justice, democracy, and labor organizations.
Last year, we also launched a two-year Journalist Education Webinar Series with “Mapping the Influence of Christian Nationalism Across all Beats” and “Trans Youth Power and Hormone Therapy” Transgender Law Center places emphasis on the power of storytelling to lift up the lived experiences of trans and gender-nonconforming people, build bridges through education, and strengthen the communications capacity of all liberation movements. Our strategic messages find fertile ground to take root through conversations at grocery stores, PTA meetings, churches, podcasts, social media platforms, and more. Thousands of viewers tuned in to learn and sharpen their reporting skills on trans issues.
Visual storytelling is at the core of Art for Hope, a joint initiative of Transgender Law Center and Gender Justice Leadership Programs for young people. In anticipation of the combination of back-to-school season with an election cycle where especially our young people were under scrutiny and attack, Art for Hope artists crafted beautiful, joyful, and hopeful images and messaging for everyone to share online. All works were created by transgender young people, including the image above “We Are Future Trans Elders.”
HIV+ Solidarity Stretches Nationally and Globally
2024 was a banner year for Positively Trans (T+) in national and global advocacy centering trans people living with HIV in our movement for trans liberation.
Transgender Law Center was proud to be one of 13 organizing partners for the transgender pre-institute for the International AIDS Conference, convened by Global Action for Trans Equality. Representatives from T+ worked on recruitment, fundraising, and reviewing scholarship and abstracts for the pre-institute, which was held in July 2024 in Munich, Germany. A delegation of eight T+ steering committee members and staff traveled to Germany to share their expertise and build community with global leaders.
Watch this video of the Transgender Pre-Institute. T+ founder Cecilia Chung joined a panel discussing the challenges trans people in America face, TLC ‘s advocacy for trans rights through access to financial, healthcare, and community resources. T+ steering committee members Teo Drake and Shekinah Rose presented on the health and wellbeing of same-gender-loving men in the HIV community and on aging with HIV, respectively.
We provided support to T+ members to go to the Creating Change conference in New Orleans. The men of T+ met for the first time in person to discuss solutions to healthcare gaps and doubled participation of trans men living with HIV from 3 to 6. Steering committee member AJ Scruggs sat on a panel “Transcending Together: Exploring Transgender Lived Experiences, Policy and Advocacy.” Senior National Organizer for T+ Tiommi Luckett, and steering committee members Milan Sherry and Naiymah Sanchez led the workshop “Where Do We Go from Here?” sharing available resources and strategies to move toward the freedom we envision.
We also supported T+ members to attend the United States Conference on HIV/AIDS (USCHA), also in New Orleans. Steering committee member Milan Sherry presented her story of diagnosis, support, and advocacy during the Blk in the South Summit. Tiommi presented alongside founding members of the U=U (undetectable = untransmittable) campaign about the origins of the successful effort, its impact across HIV, medical, and healthcare communities, and its reach in countries outside the U.S. T+ also sponsored a “Brunch & Connect” gathering at a cozy Black, trans-owned space for 40 trans and gender-diverse attendees and local New Orleans organizers.
We ❤ TLC Donors
We love all Transgender Law Center donors, and as such, we list every supporter by name, regardless of giving level. We strive for accuracy, but if you would like to update your listing in the future, please contact us at [email protected]. Visit the TLC 2024 Donors page to see a digital listing of thousands of our 2024 donors.
SPARK 2024 brought supporters from across the country together in San Francisco for a sparkly celebration!
Financials 2024
| Revenue | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Foundations | $9,788,106 | $12,985,933 |
| Individual donations | $2,593,809 | $2,881,919 |
| Corporate contributions | $1,671,860 | $1,178,121 |
| Contributed legal services | $1,231,337 | $3,164,128 |
| Gifts in-kind | $3,781 | –N/A |
| Special events | $243,366 | $180,905 |
| Case fees | $197,823 | –N/A |
| Forgiveness of debt | –N/A | –N/A |
| Government subcontracts | –N/A | –N/A |
| Dividends and interest | $1,230,002 | $1,246,527 |
| Investment realized and unrealized gains | $47,607 | $453,644 |
| Miscellaneous | $36,362 | $66,998 |
| Total Support & Revenue | $17,044,053 | $22,158,175 |
| Expenses | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Program services | $14,713,767 | $12,891,153 |
| Management and general | $2,612,272 | $2,024,740 |
| Fundraising | $1,987,719 | $1,758,900 |
| Total Expenses | $19,313,758 | $16,674,793 |
| Change in Net Assets | -$2,269,705 | $5,483,382 |
| Balance Sheet | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Total assets | $37,700,839 | $40,240,583 |
| Total liabilities | $2,922,299 | $3,192,338 |
| Total net assets | $34,778,540 | $37,048,245 |
| Total Liabilities and Net Assets | $37,700,839 | $40,240,583 |
Note: Includes revenue and expenses for TLC’s fiscally sponsored organization Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project.
As stated in Table 1: Revenue, TLC’s revenue from Foundations, Individual donation, Corporate contributions, Contributed legal services, Gifts in-kind, Special events, Case fees, Dividends and interest, Investment realized and unrealized gains, and Miscellaneous revenue streams, we earned a total of $17,044,053 in 2024 as opposed to $22,158,175 in 2023 (a $5,114,122 decrease)
As stated in Table 2: Expenses, TLC’s expenses for Program services, Management and general, and Fundraising totalled $19,313,758 in 2024 as opposed to $16,674,793 in 2023 (a $2,638,965 increase). TLC’s Net Assets in 2024 were $-2,269,705 and $5,483,382 in 2023 (a $7,753,087 decrease)
As stated in Table 3: Balance sheet, TLC’s Total assets, Total liabilities, and Total net assets totalled $37,700,839 in 2024 and $40,240,583 in 2023 (a $2,539,744 decrease)
As visualized in Pie Chart 1: 2024 Revenue, Foundations were the largest part of the revenue (57.43%), then Individuals (15.22%), Corporate contributions (9.81%), Contributed legal services (7.22%), Dividends and Interest (7.22%), Special events (1.43%), Case fees (1.16%), and Gifts in kind, Investments and unrealized gains and Miscellaneous (0.51%)
As visualized in Pie Chart 2: 2024 Expenses, Program services were the largest part of the pie (76.18%), then Management and general (13.53%), and Fundraising (10.29%)
Thank you to TLC’s Board of Directors
2025 Board
- Ana Conner, Chair
- Ginna Brelsford, Vice Chair
- Gwendolyn Rogers, Secretary
- Myles Paisley, Treasurer
- Sunu Chandy
- Diamond Collier
- Jayy Covert
- Phillipe Cunningham
- Morgan Darby
- Daroneshia Duncan-Boyd
- Ebony Harper
- Cathy Kapua
- Louis Porter II, Ed.D.
- Beckham Rivera
- Alic Shook